The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge

Well it is Friday which means that it is time for another Stamp Man challenge.  This time around we want to see some oriental cards - click here to go to the Challenge Blog and find out all about it as well as see the stunning cards that the rest of the DT have made to inspire you.

As some of you are aware I do have my own range of oriental stamps so this was the ideal time to dust them off and use them!  Normally the first thing that pops into my head when I think of oriental are the colours red, gold and black but I thought that I would steer clear of these and go for pretty colours instead to show that oriental can look great in delicate colours too.

So here is what I finally came up with using my Japanese Plum Blossom set but as you can see I couldn't resist adding some black accents to it!

The background for the card was made using one of the beautiful Starburst Stains called Frosted Forget-Me-Nots which is available to buy on its own or if you have the Icicle Creek Starburst Stain set you'll find it in there too.  I then simply stamped the panels using stamps from the Japanese Plum Blossom sheet and a Stormy Sky Distress inkpad.  As you can see I couldn't resist using my Floral Lace Martha Stewart edging punch on the bottom panel as I thought this went so well with my main image!  The wording was stamped using a black Tombow pen (as this is infact all one stamp), so I just inked up the 'friends' part first and stamped it at the top of the card, cleaned my stamp before inking up the rest of the sentiment and stamping it near the base of the card.  The accent strips of paper were off-cuts from the background that I stamped with the plum blossom branch and a black inkpad before trimming to size and adding to the card.

I stamped the main image using black StazOn and then watercoloured the flowers and branches using Tombow pens and then painted the background with the Frosted Forget-Me-Not stain.

In order to add a touch of gold to the card I then used a glue pen in the centres and stamens of the flowers, allowed the glue to turn clear and then applied gold leaf to it which when it catches the light really lights up.

Anyway I hope you like the card and feel inspired to give The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge a go!  Good luck!!

Doesn't Time Fly??

I can't believe how quickly we are getting through this year and am astonished to think that a week tomorrow I will be heading up the motorway for my workshop at Stamp Addicts. (Originally when we arranged it - the end of May seemed so far away and now it is almost here!)


Anyway in honour of my forthcoming trip to Stamp Addicts I thought I'd take the opportunity of loading up a card we did on one of my previous workshops up there. The flower stamps were stamped with a pigment inkpad and embossed with Sticky embossing powder and then gold leaf was applied over the top. As well as the Sticky embossing powder holding gold leaf it will also take foil and glitter too. The flowers were from a Printworks set, the wording from a Denami set of 3 wording stamps and the background is one of my favourite flourish stamps called Mince Flourish by Judikins. All of which you can get from Stamp Addicts.

Over the weekend I will be putting the finishing touches to the cards that we'll be doing for this coming workshop so look out for these either next week or the week after!